It is always a headache buying air cond units. There's not much information that we could rely on when buying these things. Unlike buying cars, new or old, we could just read up the online materials or go to any showrooms and scout around for cars and test drive them. But how do you test drive air cond? There is no way that this can be done . We could only depend on recommendations by people who have used them. Below are my top 3 air con units that I would recommend to prospective buyers after several years of buying them.
My first choice air cond brand in Malaysia is the Panasonic brand, I have tested so many brands such as York, Sanyo, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Lg, Samsung and a few other Chinese brands. The Panasonic is the champion in terms of price, durability and reliability. After a few years of using the brand , the unit would still give a nice cold breeze. In fact, most of the air cond installers that I have talked to have also given their recommendations for this Japanese brand. Hence, I too would strongly recommend to Bangians that if they want a good air cond unit just opt for the Panasonic brand. The compressor for the unit lasts very long. Overall this air cond is the King. It is like the Toyota of aircond.
The second best air cond that I would recommend to buyers or those who are looking for a replacement or buying a new unit is to go for Hitachi. Like the Panasonic, this Japanese brand is also an excellent unit. I would say that this it is good as the Panasonic brand except that it is slightly more expensive. Like Panasonic, the Hitachi brand will give you many years of trouble free cold air. I also notice that the size of the compressor is slightly smaller compared to the Panasonic. The compressor of the Hitachi unit is not that noisy as compared to the Mitsubishi. Overall it is a good buy
My third recommendation is Toshiba. I noticed that not many people have bought this brand. I am a little surprised by this. I really feel that the cold air provided by the Toshiba air cond is the best. In fact, the blower is the quietest and strongest of all the units that I have bought. This has also been confirmed most of the aircond installers that I talked to. One drawback of the Toshiba brand is that the spare parts are a bit expensive. I don't know to what extent this is true because the one that I have yet to break down. Anyway, this is what the installers have said.
I would not give advice that Bangians buy Korean aircond brands because they are not very cold. Even though the price is not as expensive as the Japanese I still would not recommend buying the Korean made air conds unit. In the long run, the Japanese brands give you value for money. The York aircond especially the cooling king is reasonably good but the compressor is too noisy to my liking. I would also stay away from Chinese brands. You know the Chines brands with their weird names and cheap pricing. If you have extra money to spend opt for the inverter unit but please be warned that the installation charges would cost you a bomb because the installers would need to use stronger copper piping and wiring. The inverter unit also uses a different type of gas which would cost slightly more.l
